Sarah Huckabee dismissed the idea that Mike Huckabee had decided to stay out of the race because of any lingering tensions with Thompson or the Club for Growth, noting that he had thrown his early backing to Club for Growth favorite Marco Rubio in the hotly contested Florida GOP Senate primary.“It’s absurd to say he doesn’t take sides,” Sarah Huckabee wrote in an e-mail. “He has taken a stand time after time for conservative issues. Sarah Huckabee dismissed the idea that Mike Huckabee had decided to stay out of the race because of any lingering tensions with Thompson or the Club for Growth, noting that he had thrown his early backing to Club for Growth favorite Marco Rubio in the hotly contested Florida GOP Senate primary.“It’s absurd to say he doesn’t take sides,” Sarah Huckabee wrote in an e-mail. “He has taken a stand time after time for conservative issues. Where were all the conservatives when he was saying TARP was a bad idea?””

First, Club For Growth has not endorsed Marco Rubio, though I expect they’ll be bigger than Mike Huckabee and will endorse even though they weren’t first.Second, the conservatives were saying the same thing on TARP by and large. It was, like in NY-23, the establishment that was pro-TARP and is now pro-Scozzafava.Sitting on the sidelines in this race is not an option for Romney or Huckabee.Neither is qualified as a leader of conservatives when they will not support Doug Hoffman. It is as simple as that. And we will remember in 2012.